Taking centrestage, to keep you from honking

Noisy Mumbaiites will have to take a break.The Mumbai traffic police have flagged off a 10-day-long no-honking drive in the city, starting Thursday, reports Megha Sood.

indiaUpdated: Feb 05, 2009 15:04 IST

Megha Sood Hindustan Times

Noisy Mumbaiites will have to take a break.The Mumbai traffic police have flagged off a 10-day-long no-honking drive in the city, starting Thursday.

The aim is to check honking-addicted motorists and bring down noise levels on the city’s roads.

However, this drive is different. The traffic police plan to get Mumbaiites to kick the habit by displaying their creative and softer side.

They have collaborated with the Idea Academy of actors for street plays to encourage people to keep their hands off the horns.

“The street plays will talk to the people of Mumbai from all strata, as it will be in the language they speak,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic).

Traffic policemen will be stationed at various junctions to warn motorists not to honk unnecessarily.

“Our intention is not to fine, but to develop a habit of no honking among the motorists,” said Barve.

Not to leave any stone unturned, the traffic police will also target schoolchildren by distributing stickers with the phrase: ‘Dad, don’t honk written on it’.

Also giving a fillip to their anti-drink driving campaign, the police have tied up with Metropolis Health Services, a chain of laboratories, who will stick the message ‘Do not Drink and Drive’ on their reports.

“We believe that when you receive such a message on a medical report, you will take it more seriously than when you see it in an advertisement. In the anti-honking drive, the plan of using schoolchildren can be very effective. As, when a stranger tells you not to honk you may get angry, but it will be different if your own child tells the same. Also, we can extend the programme for making people use seatbelts too,” added Barve.

The successful drunken driving campaign has been an encouragement for the traffic police to move on to other offences.

“This is a very responsive city, as we have noticed from our earlier campaign against drunken driving. Accidents and fatalities have fallen

significantly since then and we think that they will fall further. We feel that the